Aaron
Hart, Rabbi of the Great Synagogue, 1706-1756 (from a
mezzotint)

ALL this time, Aaron
Hart had remained Rabbi of the congregation. His appearance is
familiar from the superb engraving executed in 1751, when he was in
his eighty-second year, by James McArdell, after the painting by
Dandridge now preserved in the Great Synagogue vestry-room. He is an
impressive figure of a man, with his careful dress, his benign face,
his flowing white beard, his finely-modelled features. Under his
elbow is a leather-bound Hebrew folio, and in his hand a piece of
paper apparently marked Get--a reminiscence perhaps of the famous
controversy on the Bill of Divorce many years before. Except during
this quarrelsome interlude, he was rather a retiring figure, and few
records exist whereby his personality may be recovered. He seems
however to have been fairly well abreast of current theological
writings in English, if we may trust Edward Goldney's conversionist
work, A Friendly Epistle to the Jews, published in 1760, which
contains a vivid pen-picture. The writer, wishing to know something
about contemporary Jewish beliefs, was advised to wait upon "Mr.
Aaron Hart (who was then living) an eminent and very aged High
Priest, who as they said, his life and conversation was
unblemishable". Providing himself with a letter of introduction,
accordingly, Goldney waited on the old man (he was upwards of eighty)
and tried to engage him in controversy, asking him his grounds for
refusing to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. The Rabbi refused to
be drawn into an argument which could hardly have any profitable or
pleasant outcome. "The English Jews," he observed, "are not fond of
gaining proselytes." For his part, his father, grandfather and
greatgrandfather had been Jews, and he saw no reason for abandoning
their manner of belief. Goldney, who had come prepared for something
different, lost his temper. He was surprised, he said, to receive
such a poor, low, mean answer From a gentleman of his years and high
station in the Synagogue: and he pressed on his conversionist arguments, with
more heat than good taste. The Rabbi replied by handing him an English
rationalistic work published some time before - Woolston's Discourses on the Miracles
- and turning to the middle of
it asked him to read a few pages. Nothing more was needed. Goldney
left him, adequately answered, but not a little indignant.

Rabbi Hart's
functions were carefully laid down in the Takkanoth. He regularly
preached twice yearly, on the Sabbaths before the Passover and the
Day of Atonement, after the morning service; on these occasions, he
had a prescriptive right to be "called up" to the Reading of the Law,
but not on other days when he chose to deliver a discourse. He was
expected to read the service for Rain on Shemini Atsereth and for Dew
on the first day of Passover, as well as the Concluding Service on
the Day of Atonement. Besides his salary, the congregation paid the
rent of his house, which came, at the outset, to £23 a year. In
his later years, it is to be imagined that his wealthy brother
relieved him of all financial care.

From the literary
point of view, the Rabbi was the reverse of productive. After his
polemical publication of 1706, he produced no further books, and in
his portrait it is on his father-in-law's magnum opus, Beth Shemuel
(which at one time he had intended to edit), that his elbow is
resting. There is extant in fact only one inconsiderable relic of his
intellectual activity in his later years. It was at the time an open
question whether turbot was permissible for food in accordance with
Mosaic law: and when a delegation of Venetian Rabbis came to England
in 1741 to conduct certain negotiations with the Spanish and
Portuguese community, the opportunity was taken to ask them what was
the Italian tradition in this matter. There is preserved a letter of
theirs indicating that, on the lagoons, the fish in question was
indubitably regarded as permissible for Jewish food, with a covering
note to the Rabbi of Amsterdam from "Monsr Aaron Hart, Rabin,
London". If there is any other specimen of his handwriting extant
(except perhaps as signatory to a marriage contract), it is not known
to the present writer.1

After the Rabbi, in
order both of importance and of emoluments, came the Reader (Hazan).
As we have seen, at the time of the dedication of the Synagogue in
1722, this dignity was filled by Jehiel Michael ben R. Moses Joseph;
just before, we find payments recorded to Joseph the Hazan and
Michael the Bass-singer." The other assistant at this time, who
completed the choral organisation2, was Samuel Hirsch of Schwersee,
the Meshorrer. The new Takkanoth of 1722 forbade the employment of
such assistants by the Hazan, on the ground that it was an abuse of
the patience of the community; this prohibition did not, however,
last for long. In 1729(?) Michael the Meshorrer was promoted to be
Hazan, for an initial period of three years, at a salary of £60
per annum, but this relatively high rate of payment was only
temporary. In 1741/2 the Hazan was also Michael (perhaps Michael the
Bass-singer already recorded) who was assisted on the High Holydays
by a certain Leib; the other remained in office as Assistant Hazan,
his salary being raised in 1751 by £6, to £30.

Isaac
Polack, Hazan of the Great Synagogue, 1746-1802 (from a
mezzotint)

In 1744, there
appears on the scene the first of the Readers of the Great Synagogue
who is today more than a mere name - one of the most distinguished
indeed of all those who have occupied the office. This was the bahur
Isaac Elias [i.e. Isaac, son of Elias: this method of
nomenclature, common on the Continent at the period, should not be
forgotten] Polack, of Hamburg, who was appointed to office in
that year for an initial five years at an annual salary of £30.
He is referred to in 1795 as "the venerable", and so was born before
1725, but he must have been a very young man (as well as a bachelor)
when he first became associated with the congregation. He overlapped
for about a decade with Rabbi Aaron Hart; their combined periods of
office covered an unbroken stretch of approximately one hundred
years! In 1748, he had an increase in salary of £10 a year,
bringing it to £40, and the same again twelve months later.
Ultimately, he received £70 a year, together with ten guineas
for clothes. More will be said about him later on.3 Among the
Reader's duties was the examination of the Scroll of the Law every
week to make sure that it was fit for public worship; if he was
negligent and an error was discovered during the public reading, he
was fined half a crown. It may be mentioned at this point that even
in the middle of the eighteenth century the Congregation endeavoured
to introduce decorum into the service of the Synagogue by insisting
that the officiant should wear canonicals; and in 1755 it was decided
that the Hazan should not be allowed to conduct service without his
"mantle". Visiting Hazanim diversified the proceedings from time to
time, but only if the full governing body approved: should the
Gabbaim make such arrangements on their own authority, each was
liable to a fine of five guineas--a figure which shows how heinous
the offence was considered.

It was something of
a tradition in Jewish communities of the past that when possible
appointments were allowed to remain in the same family. This was
especially the case in connexion with the office of Secretary, in
which a son could be initiated while assisting his father, so that
when the latter retired he became the obvious candidate for the
succession. In some of the great continental communities, the office
of secretary thus remained in a single family for centuries (as was
the case with, for instance, the Cases family in Mantua, who provided
successive incumbents from the seventeenth century down to our own
day). The same tendency manifested itself in England. The first
person whom we know to have fulfilled these functions was Meir Lefman
Polack, who was appointed Assistant Scribe to the Congregation in
1738 at a salary of £5 per annum, and in 1741 also Collector for
another £5. Later he took over full secretarial functions, and
in 1752 signed a communication in English to the Spanish and
Portuguese Synagogue which will be spoken of in the next chapter; in
1748, his salary was raised to £15 per annum, and in 1753 to
£20. By now his once firm handwriting was that of an ailing old
man; and in 1756, he was succeeded by his son Israel, and the latter
in turn on his death in 1771 by his brother Eleazar Lipman or Lefman
Polack (the two were admitted members of the Congregation in 1769/70)
at a yearly salary of £15.4

The communal
dignitaries included also the Physician, with his salary of £30
per annum, who sat with the Wardens and had a vote on important
occasions, and whose duty it was to look after the poor. The earliest
functionary of whom we have knowledge who served in the Great
Synagogue in this capacity was Meyer Löw Schomberg, born at
Fetzburg in Germany in 1690, who graduated at Giessen in 1710 and
afterwards removed to London, where he was admitted a licenciate of
the Royal College of Physicians in 1722. At this time, he was so
reduced in circumstances that the College accepted his bond for
future payment of his admission fees. For some time he was the
physician to the Great Synagogue: and, on the basis of the connexions
with wealthy business men which he thus acquired, he became one of
the best-known medical practitioners in the City, being reputed to
earn 4,000 guineas a year. In 1746 he wrote as a sort of personal
apologia a semi-ethical work which he entitled Emunath Omen (a title
which may perhaps be translated as "The Faith of a Professional
Man"). In this, he soundly trounced his coreligionists and former
patrons. They broke the Ten Commandments. Their God was Mammon. If
they heard on Sabbath that a ship was sunk, they ran to 'Change to
learn whether India and South Sea Stock had gone up or down, and they
did not scruple to garnish a bankrupt's banking-account on the sacred
day. They ate forbidden food, and married Gentiles in Church,
despising Jewish girls because their position or family was not good
enough for them. As for himself, they called him a bad Jew because he
carried a sword and rode in his coach on Saturdays when he went to
visit his patients. But this was all pretext: in fact, he could not
practise among Jews, he sneered, because Jews would not pay Jewish
doctors a living wage, though they would gladly heap gold upon a
non-Jewish physician.

The physician's
insincerity was demonstrated by the history of his own family, who
with one accord abandoned the Jewish faith (in certain cases at least
before the criticisms quoted above had been penned) and, their
pathway through life thus smoothed, carved out strikingly successful
careers. Isaac, who graduated at Cambridge in 1750, after undergoing
baptism, became Fellow and Censor of the College of Physicians, and
attended Garrick in his last illness. His brother, Ralph, was well
known in letters, publishing a number of dramatic and other works
(most of them extremely bad). Henry became a soldier, and rose to the
rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Alexander, the youngest, entered the
navy, was in command of the naval detachment which covered General
Wolfe's landing at Quebec, and was subsequently knighted: he was
father of Admiral Sir Alexander Schomberg (1774-1850) the
distinguished naval writer, and ancestor of a notable naval
clan.

Of the communal
physicians immediately after Schomberg, we know very little; and even
their names can be recovered only with difficulty. It is possible
that Dr. Bass, "a noted Jew physician", who died in St. Mary Axe in
1731, and the Londoner "Dr. Jeremias", active at Prague in the middle
of the century, had been in the employment of the Great Synagogue,
but there is no definite evidence to this effect; the same applies to
Behr the Physician, a member of the community about this time. In
1758, "Herz Doctor" was formally appointed to attend on the
congregational poor at a salary of £10 per annum (increased in
1766 to £20). Possibly he is identical with Hart Wessels, M.D.,
buried in the Alderney Road cemetery in 17675 : who doubtless
collaborated on occasion with Nathan Mitchell, M.D., who was laid to
rest there in 1785. Ultimately, the physician drew a salary of
£40 per annum - £20 from the Charity Fund and £20 from
the Society for Visiting the Sick. From this amount, £15 was
deducted to pay the apothecary, who received an additional £5
from the Congregation, making £20 in all. From 1751 onwards, the
congregational apothecary was. Yossel ben Hertz "Doctor" (presumably
Hart Wessel's son), whose appointment was constantly renewed year
after year: he was followed, in 1767, by a member of the Sephardi
community named Rodrigues.

Of the subordinate
communal officials we know still less. As Scribe, for writing Scrolls
of the Law and important documents (his duties and emoluments were
carefully stipulated in the regulations of 1722), Rabbi Aaron Hart
imported his brother-in-law, Leib Aryeh, a son of the author of the
Beth Shemuel, who died in 1751; his tombstone in the Alderney Road
ground is still legible. The Gentleman's Magazine informs us in 1776
of the death of one of his successors in office--Levy Marks, aged 96,
Principal Scribe to the Jew's Synagogue. (The phraseology suggests
that there were several who followed the profession.) Cases of Jewish
longevity, indeed, often engaged the attention of the gentlemen of
the Press. To cite some instances which must have been familiar to
members of the Great Synagogue, we read in 1765 how Rabbi Shamey, a
fine old Polander, aged 102, with a nineteen-inch beard, attended the
celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles. More frequently, we are told
of such prodigies only after they had passed from earth, as in the
case of Solomon Raphael Levy of St. Giles', who died in 1771 aged
108, or Isaac Benjamin, "the oldest Jew in England", who followed
suit in 1775 in his 109th year, leaving twelve sons resident in the
country. In January 1786, there died in Moorfields David Levi
Solomons, "a Jewish Rabbi", aged 100; in 1799, there passed away in
his 108th year Nathan Moses "the oldest member of the Dutch Jews'
Synagogue", who, like the foregoing, may have recalled the original
place of worship in Broad Court. Such longevity was sometimes found,
though exceptionally, among the wealthy, as in the case of Maria Anna
Moses, "a rich Jewess", of Whitechapel, who on her death in 1785, in
her hundredth year, left £10,000 to be divided among the poor of
her own persuasion.

Another official who
had to be appointed by the Community was the Constable, as was
customary in the Aldgate Ward. In 1766, the duties were filled by
Lyon Toby, apparently a Sephardi; but later on there were two, one
Sephardi and one Ashkenazi--the latter probably nominated by the
Great Synagogue.

The following
provisional list of communal employees of the first half of the
eighteenth century, whose names figure in the accounts and elsewhere,
may be set down at this point:

1 It may be
mentioned that there were at least four other Aaron Harts who were
contemporary with the Rabbi. One, a teacher of dancing and
deportment, is mentioned in The Connoisseur of November 6th, 1755;
another, a sailor aboard the privateer Caxtor, died at sea on
February 28th, 1759; another was Commissary Officer with the British
forces at the time of the conquest of Canada (see above, page 65);
and a fourth, a merchant with American connexions, died on November
21st, 1762, leaving in his will instructions that "I desire to be
buried in Linnen and to have a Horse, and four mourning coaches and
six others... And I desire and order that 10 persons may come to
read, every morning and evening for one month after my decease, for
which my executors shall give them 90 shillings each."

2 For this choral
system see below, p. 143.

3 The Rev. M.
Rosenbaum suggests that he was a nephew of Reb Aberle, whose wife was
Esther, daughter of Isaac Polack (d. Hamburg, 1713), and son of the
Elias Isaac Polack who received a pass to go abroad in 1692 and 1693.

4 David Tevele
Schiff, the later Chief Rabbi, had an uncle named Lefman Polack: Meir
Lefman Polack may therefore have been his cousin.

5 Dr. Herz's
successor, appointed this same year, was Abraham van Oven, for whom
see below, pp. 200-1.

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